|
So who else is viewing the forum by candlelight?
|
|
Well, there is a sort of reddish glow, but I think I may be viewing forum through bottom of a wine glass. What is Earth Hour?
|
The Panda told me!!
It's WWF thing where we all put the lights out for an hour.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Hour
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 26 Mar 11 at 21:09
|
>> What is Earth Hour?
www.earthhour.org/FAQ.aspx
As with so much about the Green Movement, the essential message is blurred a bit by the quasi-religious feel to the way that it is expressed. This is a pity because theirs is a voice that should be heard - but best in a cold and rational atmosphere, I think.
|
"It's WWF thing where we all put the lights out for an hour."
How the heck do they expect me to find the wine box if I do that? difficult even in the light of a glowing cigar. What do they want? Miracles?
Last edited by: VxFan on Mon 28 Mar 11 at 21:11
|
"How the heck do they expect me to find the wine box"
The glow from all the "stand by" LEDs
|
>>"How the heck do they expect me to find the wine box"<<
Consider using Saki :(
|
I wish I'd known about this.
I'd have made a point of turning every electrical item I could find on at full power.
|
>>I'd have made a point of turning every electrical item I could find on at full power.<<
I've met 'your type' before - you probably run a polluting diesel engined car as well.
:+)
|
earth hour probably run by the same type of morons that damaged our capitol city last night and smashed my bank windows
no time for hippies
|
Watching the footage (why do we still call it that ?) this morning, I saw a group of people smashing the windows of a well known Spanish bank....anyone see Ted yesterday ?
|
Sorry that it,s a long post:
Earth Hour: A Dissent
by Ross McKitrick
In 2009 I was asked by a journalist for my thoughts on the importance of Earth Hour.
Here is my response.
I abhor Earth Hour. Abundant, cheap electricity has been the greatest source of human liberation in the 20th century. Every material social advance in the 20th century depended on the proliferation of inexpensive and reliable electricity.
Giving women the freedom to work outside the home depended on the availability of electrical appliances that free up time from domestic chores. Getting children out of menial labour and into schools depended on the same thing, as well as the ability to provide safe indoor lighting for reading.
Development and provision of modern health care without electricity is absolutely impossible. The expansion of our food supply, and the promotion of hygiene and nutrition, depended on being able to irrigate fields, cook and refrigerate foods, and have a steady indoor supply of hot water.
Many of the world’s poor suffer brutal environmental conditions in their own homes because of the necessity of cooking over indoor fires that burn twigs and dung. This causes local deforestation and the proliferation of smoke- and parasite-related lung diseases.
Anyone who wants to see local conditions improve in the third world should realize the importance of access to cheap electricity from fossil-fuel based power generating stations. After all, that’s how the west developed.
The whole mentality around Earth Hour demonizes electricity. I cannot do that, instead I celebrate it and all that it has provided for humanity.
Earth Hour celebrates ignorance, poverty and backwardness. By repudiating the greatest engine of liberation it becomes an hour devoted to anti-humanism. It encourages the sanctimonious gesture of turning off trivial appliances for a trivial amount of time, in deference to some ill-defined abstraction called “the Earth,” all the while hypocritically retaining the real benefits of continuous, reliable electricity.
People who see virtue in doing without electricity should shut off their fridge, stove, microwave, computer, water heater, lights, TV and all other appliances for a month, not an hour. And pop down to the cardiac unit at the hospital and shut the power off there too.
I don’t want to go back to nature. Travel to a zone hit by earthquakes, floods and hurricanes to see what it’s like to go back to nature. For humans, living in “nature” meant a short life span marked by violence, disease and ignorance. People who work for the end of poverty and relief from disease are fighting against nature. I hope they leave their lights on.
Here in Ontario, through the use of pollution control technology and advanced engineering, our air quality has dramatically improved since the 1960s, despite the expansion of industry and the power supply.
If, after all this, we are going to take the view that the remaining air emissions outweigh all the benefits of electricity, and that we ought to be shamed into sitting in darkness for an hour, like naughty children who have been caught doing something bad, then we are setting up unspoiled nature as an absolute, transcendent ideal that obliterates all other ethical and humane obligations.
No thanks.
I like visiting nature but I don’t want to live there, and I refuse to accept the idea that civilization with all its tradeoffs is something to be ashamed of.
Ross McKitrick
Professor of Economics
University of Guelph
|
neiltoo said:
>> Sorry that it,s a long post:
[snip]
A lot of sense there. These eco types sometimes forget that they live a cosy comfortable life due to modern science and technology and the lifestyle most of us enjoy was previously the preserve of the ruling classes. A pineapple used to be a symbol of wealth, hence the presence of large stone pineapples on top of gate posts at the entrances to stately homes.
|
I've just spent nearly £80 replacing incandescent light bulbs with Cree LED versions. In return for that favour to Mother Earth, I think I was entitled to leave the lights on last night.
Having said that, I'm in a rented flat so have a note on top of the boxes in the utility room reminding me to take the bulbs with me when I leave!
|
|
Not being critical of the idea - but I think it's better to make considerate changes every day to lifestyle. Turn a light off, recycle instead of landfilling. Ride a bike instead of driving a car when possible.
|
i took the bulb out of the fridge when i bought it 4 years ago
wife made me replace it last month and now the door doesnt always shut properly so wasting more fossil fuels (the exact reason i took it out for)
i was brought up in an age to turn off any lights etc before the shilling went in the meter and still turn off any device not used including stand by devices at the plug
i agree that electricity brings freedom and better health and as i said earlier its hippies that dont do real jobs but rely on mummy and daddy that bang the earth hour gong,yes they spent a year out in some who flung dun region and still bang their guitars about it while eating sainsburys lentils
idiots..................
|
Bellboy said:
>> still bang their guitars about it while eating sainsburys lentils
Methane is a far more effective greenhouse gas than CO2.
|
There's a man after me own heart, Robin.
Every National No Smoking Day I make a point of smoking two at a time, one in each hand:)
Pat
Last edited by: pda on Sun 27 Mar 11 at 17:16
|
Bromptonaut said:
>> So who else is viewing the forum by candlelight?
No need, my 100" LCD monitor lights up the entire room. ;)
This strikes me as one of those meaningless feel good exercises whereby a lot of well meaning middle class closet hippy types make themselves feel good by doing something that has a totally insignificant impact, and feel smug and self satisfied, and look down on others. If global warming is real, and I certainly have no evidence against it, then we are truly stuffed as we need a sea change in our behaviour. Recycling, and using energy saving bulbs is probably too small a step, but it does make sense in other respects i.e. save waste, save money, create a healthier country. The true problem is probably over population, so if the self satisfied types really want to do their bit for the world ...
|
>>.... make themselves feel good by doing something that has a totally insignificant impact...
Just as well it has no impact.
If enough was switched off it would make life difficult for the CEGB (or whatever they call themselves these days).
They prefer a nice steady load, and like the street lights on overnight to provide some load for the generators (and why they used to push "economy 7") AFAIK.
|
AnotherJohnH said:
>> They prefer a nice steady load, and like the street lights on overnight to provide
>> some load for the generators (and why they used to push "economy 7") AFAIK.
Good point, and quite ironic really.
|
Earth Hour - PhilW
